


The Lover's Knot

by Nym



Series: A Bed of Thorns Remixes Etc. [1]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-19
Updated: 2013-02-19
Packaged: 2017-11-29 20:31:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/691147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nym/pseuds/Nym
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The wedding night from chapter 4 of <em>A Bed of Thorns</em>, remixed from Rumpelstiltskin's point of view.</p><p>
  <em>Rumpelstiltskin bends at the waist, watching her face and lifting her chin with a crooked finger when she tries to look away, flustered by his sudden close attention. He must have the truth from her. The whole of the truth; he must feel it in her flinch, see it in her honest eyes and hear it in the way her breathing changes. He holds her chin, careful as if she were spun from glass.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Lover's Knot

**Author's Note:**

  * For [calonari](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=calonari), [whoopswhoopswhoops](https://archiveofourown.org/users/whoopswhoopswhoops/gifts).



> Tumblr users calonari and lackadaisydreams asked for the wedding night from chapter 4 of _A Bed of Thorns_ , remixed from Rumpelstiltskin's point of view.
> 
> **None of my fanfiction may be reposted or otherwise shared elsewhere, including translations and audio recordings, unless you have my written consent. Using my occasional original ideas/characters in your own fanfic, to make your _own_ words or art or whatever, is fine with me.**

They sell a clear spirit in these parts that's best used to disinfect wounds and start fires. Rumpelstiltskin seats himself at the table furthest from the inn's cheery hearth, in the darkest corner, and tells the barmaid to keep his cup full of the stuff if she knows what's good for her. A flourish of gold keeps it from being entirely a threat; the fair-haired and freckled thing wants the gold enough to keep returning to his table with her jug, with her best effort at a smile, and even brings him a taper to light his pipe when she spots him filling it.

The liquor has next to no effect on Rumpelstiltskin's sobriety, but at least the burning in his throat and guts is a distraction from what awaits him upstairs. After a while he takes out his flask and empties the potent contents into his cup to mingle with the local brew. The effect is greatly improved, at last smothering the livelier of his unwanted thoughts, and the memories of stolen innocence and degradation that his curse brought with it. He finds no excitement in the secondhand images of tearful girls with a sullen lack of defiance, bending to the will of the Dark One. He finds no beauty in their faces, but his wife is beautiful. When she refuses him, tonight, he will honour her as a wife should be honoured, and show her that she need not be afraid.

Not of _that_.

She wears her terror like armour, this one. It doesn't make her weak. There's pride in her, but not the blind sort - not the sort that comes from a noble birth and an ignorant arrogance. Not the sort that Rumpelstiltskin feels the urge to break all to pieces at the earliest opportunity so that he may trample upon the shards of folly. Sir Maurice's daughter possesses a different kind of pride, a nobility that has nothing to do with noble birth at all, and she will do her duty without complaint if her beast-husband insists. Rumpelstiltskin doesn't doubt it. She might even try not to loathe him, afterwards. He knows the taste of a wife's contempt, already, and it's bitter in his mouth when he gives up on trying to become drunk, leaves a large piece of gold beneath his cup for the wench, and trudges upstairs to see to the business at hand.

It's only a deal. The breaking of it will be in her favour. A... technicality. In everything else, she will be his wife.

She ought to be in bed, in her virginal nightgown, awaiting her fate with her chin held high. Entering the room at her timid answer to his knock, Rumpelstiltskin finds his bride still... bridal. The absurd white dress has been ruined by her brief walk over wet ground, the hem gone grey-black with watery mud.

Below them, in the bar, the chatter that his presence had subdued takes on a new life. Rumpelstiltskin can hear every word until he shuts the door.

"I don't think they were enjoying my company," he complains, brightly, pressing a hand over his heart. It's pounding fast, that dried up old organ. He snatches his hand away and toys with the door key while he studies his bride. "You disliked the bath?"

He wants her to find comfort, such as she can. A hot bath - who doesn't enjoy a hot bath? Rumpelstiltskin feels his hammering heart sink, also. A girl who doesn't know when her new husband will come marching in and claim his rights, of course; that's who. No man has ever seen this lovely girl unclothed, probably not even her father when she was too tiny for it to matter in the least.

Rumpelstiltskin conceals his confusion by turning half away from her to make a show of locking the door.

"It..." Her voice quavers, but she stops. Swallows. Begins again, stronger. "The gown. It wasn't made for me to unfasten myself." There's a rustle of satin as she twists her body and tries to indicate the back of the stiff bodice with its criss-cross of tight lacing.

"Ah." He remembers another night, he and Milah giggling from the wedding mead and giddy from the dancing, and he blinks away the past, staring at Belle. "Then turn around, my Lady."

Her blue eyes widen before she turns her back to him. Rumpelstiltskin studies the knot between her pale shoulders. Whoever tied it has achieved a clumsy mess instead of the intractable and decorative knot that he suspects it's supposed to be. And suppose the girl has a husband who isn't inclined to play the game as it's meant to be played? Nervously, he digs his fingernails between the cords and begins to pull, only to find that doing so tightens the whole thing. If he keeps pulling, he'll probably suffocate his little bride with her own bodice. A stupid game - folly! Rumpelstiltskin hooks his fingers lower down the ladder-rungs of satin cord and tugs himself some slack, ungently, unbalancing her for a moment or two.

"I'm sorry," she gasps. "The knot, it's our custom."

Yes, Rumpelstiltskin thinks, applying his fingers to the knot again. Custom. Like carrying your bride across the threshold; like the clamour of rowdy intruders banging their pots and pans and drums to chase away the demons before the consummation. It all assumes a certain amount of goodwill and patience on the part of the bridegroom, and who pays for his frustration when the ribaldry is over and the guests are gone?

"A tangle, is what it is," he says, trying to soothe her with his voice. He's forgotten how to speak softly, gently; how to do anything with another person's fear but glory in it. The knot gives way to his persistence, the two ends of the satin cord part company, and his wife's constricted chest expands enough that the cord begins to slither loose. Beneath the wedding gown, she wears a white chemise of the thinnest, smoothest silk. Rumpelstiltskin itches to stroke it with his fingertips while he draws the cord from the eyelets, two by two. He stares at the back of her neck, at skin that must be softer even than silk, and so wonderfully warm.

Some fool of a maid has pinned up all the wonderful copper hair that, ordinarily, frames Belle's face and gives her pale skin the glow of warmth. Rumpelstiltskin watches her clasp her hands to her bosoms to keep the bodice from falling away, and it is her modesty rather than her beauty that feeds the cold embers of a bodily desire. Hers is not the ostentatious, false modesty of a woman who wishes to tease and be admired, but the pragmatic modesty of a woman whose maidenhead will be sacrificed in service to her father's political ambition. It's a sad and lovely thing to see, at the edge of surrender.

It could be his. _She_ could be his, if he cares to see the revulsion in her honest eyes every time they meet hereafter. Rumpelstiltskin closes his eyes, banishes wistfulness and then dangles the cord over the girl's shoulder. "My Lady, you appear to be free," he quips, though without the least trace of genuine humour.

"Thank you." She shrugs and settles her shoulders, breathing deeply and with every sign of relief. Rumpelstiltskin reaches for her slender waist, but drops his hands at the last moment and covers her hips where she's padded beneath the skirts, instead. He does not mean to alarm her, to _paw_ her - only to be quite certain that he has her undivided attention.

"Tell me," he commands, quietly. He leans nearer to be certain that she hears him; that he sees and senses her honest answer, regardless of what she tells him. He can smell her, the perfume in her hair and her soapy soft scent lingering on her skin where his breath raises goosebumps. "Are you a maiden? The truth, now, dearie. These things matter."

"I am." Of course, she's hardly surprised that he asks. What a father declares in public and what a bride admits after the wedding is done with... well. They're often not the same thing, are they? Rumpelstiltskin believes her, and lets go of her with a sigh.

"A pity," he murmurs, and finds that it is a genuine and heavy regret that dulls his voice. He puts his back to her, abruptly; goes to the window and longs to throw it open, to feel the cold and the rain against his face. He can hardly breathe in this stuffy little room! She crowds him, this unmoving slip of a girl!

"I don't understand. Should I not be a maiden?" She sounds annoyed, as well she might.

"A pity for you, child." What joys she's never known, she'll never know now. He'll leave her untouched rather than see her flinch from the sight of him, oh yes, but he'll share her with no man now that they are wed. She is _his._ She will remain so.

He cannot leave her standing there, half dressed and wondering what in all the hells her hideous husband means to do to her. Leave her to sleep. Yes. Let her refuse him, and go. "Make yourself comfortable. Bathe if you wish. I shan't peek." He sneers as he says it, but not at her. He has no contempt for the Lady Belle. She is rapidly filling him with a grudging admiration, in fact, and it's a chore to keep his word and not sneak a peek at her while she undresses.

Does he desire her then, after all? There's a stirring in him, certainly, while he listens to the rustles of fabric and the hitches in her breathing as she readies herself. He can hear her fear in the shallowness of each breath, but it isn't a mindless terror. She isn't going to weep or hurl herself at his feet to beg mercy. Rumpelstiltskin knows that he will have to _ask_ her. He'll have her answer and then he'll go, the matter settled. She will be dutiful, but she need not despise him. He will be kind, a true husband. He _will_ honour her and abide by her choice.

The cool satin cord that laced her bodice slides through his fingers while he waits. It soothes him, a small and pleasant thing; it slows the pounding of his heart if he occupies his hands.

"You can look," she calls, nervously. He isn't meeting her expectations, but Rumpelstiltskin cannot be sorry for it. She expects to be forced, one way or another; if not by brute strength then by cold circumstance, so she offers him this quiet compliance. Swallowing hard, Rumpelstiltskin turns about and looks at her, sitting primly at the edge of the bed, her hands and that flimsy tiara of silvered tin in her lap. She has let down her hair, and she looks lovely even with several hairpins between her lips. Young, delicate and lovely. He may at least _look_ upon his wife, may he not?

Perhaps not. Belle looks back at him, a shrewdness beneath her terror, and Rumpelstiltskin cannot bear to hold her gaze. He looks around the room, noting that the innkeeper has left all as it should be. He will be rewarded, of course, though Rumpelstiltskin suspects that he will never return here, after this night's work is done.

"Is this your home?" She has taken the pins out of her mouth to speak to him. Startled, Rumpelstiltskin has a proper look at her. His wife. The journey has left her pale, her fear more so, yet she has not wept. Not even while she was left alone; there are none of the telltale signs about her eyes. They are heavy with tiredness, not swollen from tears. She almost manages to smile when he catches her eye; she wants to _speak_ with him!

Rumpelstiltskin clears his throat, continuing to stare at her.

"No." This place? A room at a roadside inn? He's affronted by the suggestion, having gone to such great and exhausting lengths to become a legend in his own lifetime. Does she not know the tales of the Dark Castle? "We've another day's journey to my estate." Belle tenses at that, giving him a polite smile of thanks for the information. It is her uncertainty that frightens her, then? He takes a step towards her, unaccustomed to quelling fear rather than fuelling it. "Your duties will be light," Rumpelstiltskin assures her, wondering if she has been expecting that she will not survive the night. "You will live in comfort and be well protected." He nods, encouragingly, and wonders at himself.

"I will try to be a good wife, sir," she promises, solemnly. Her voice has grown deeper in her fatigue. She is too weary even to be properly terrified of him. What a charming young thing she is, this Belle. Even in her dishevelled pallor, she is a beauty. So... unspoiled. Rumpelstiltskin reaches out, slowly, and brushes his knuckles against her hair. She holds her breath until she understands that he means to do no more than he has already done; merely to touch her crowning glory with his fingers for a moment. Even this much seems a violation of one so lovely, by one so old and soiled.

Rumpelstiltskin bends at the waist, watching her face and lifting her chin with a crooked finger when she tries to look away, flustered by his sudden close attention. He must have the truth from her. The whole of the truth; he must feel it in her flinch, see it in her honest eyes and hear it in the way her breathing changes. He holds her chin, careful as if she were spun from glass.

"Tell me that I disgust you," he tells her, slowly, "and I will leave our contract unfulfilled, my Lady." Belle does not react, not with so much as a blink. She seems hypnotised by his nearness. She stares into his eyes. "Do you understand what that means?" Her lips part very slightly on an intake of breath, shifting her delicate chin against his fingers. She _thinks_. Rumpelstiltskin watches her, captivated by that. He offers her escape, she need only answer, and she hesitates, _thinking_.

Must he assure her that the offer is without ulterior motive? That if she sends him from her bedchamber, he will not return to her proud little town and flatten it before the dawn comes? Or must he explain to her what is at stake? Does she not understand the business at hand? Surely not...

"You don't," Belle says, feeling her way through the response as she goes. A tiny frown puts wrinkles between her plucked brows. "You don't disgust me," she concludes, growing more certain as she speaks."You frighten me. You frighten everybody, and I think you want to."

 _What?_ Rumpelstiltskin backs away from her, closing his eyes lest she see... lest she _see_. Her simple honesty cuts like a razor; it cuts him to the quick. Disgust is all that he has been certain of finding in her, beyond her immediately obvious attributes - it has been the foundation of his plans, such as they are. Let it be her decision, her doing, her _will_ that is done here and...

Does she not _understand_ what he has offered her? The girl is motherless, but she is not a child; war and a lonely father have conspired to keep her unwed for years longer than many a high-born maid. She must know the nature of this... this deal?

Yes, she must. She has made her choice.

"Then our contract must be consummated," he tells her, more sharply than he intends to. The imminent prospect of a monster between her legs will be enough to rouse her common sense from beneath the shrouds of mindless duty and numbing exhaustion; she'll send him away when he presses the point. "Such things..." he swallows, a moment before his voice would have broken "...matter."

They do matter, and most especially to one whose stock in trade - whose very lifeblood, it seems - is contracts. The mockery of a marriage ceremony is nothing that the word of a higher born lord cannot undo, but the bedding is where it becomes a matter of blood, fate and magic. A contract that not even betrayal can dissolve, is a freely consummated marriage. A contract far removed from slippery words and hollow promises.

While he tries to steal a moment, to think, the maiden sets aside her trinkets, gets herself matter-of-factly into bed, and clambers her way to the centre of it, leaving room for her husband beside her. Rumpelstiltskin turns away rather than stare at her, and rather than dwell upon that lingering, thoughtful little frown that she wears. He can see that she has not merely overlooked his offer in her confusion, and it seems unlikely that she has, in her innocence, misunderstood. She watches him. Even once he has turned his back to her, Rumpelstiltskin can _feel_ her watching him - wary, waiting. And willing?

He needs a drink.

The raw power of the Dark One renders him all but immune to any mortal poison, to his endless and bitter regret. In order to become drunk, Rumpelstiltskin must overindulge to such a gross extent, and imbibe so rapidly, that any spirit sours in his mouth long before he has managed to so much as dull his wits. There are magical concoctions that will get the job done, of course, but even they do not last - and the price of such magic appears to be that when his wits return, they bring with them an unwelcome, raw clarity that's invariably worse than the sorrows he was attempting to drown in the first place.

Rumpelstiltskin picks up his wife's empty cup and fills it from the jug of mead. If it won't get him drunk then it will, at least, wet his suddenly dry mouth. When he raises it to his lips, though, he tastes a memory - the wedding cup he shared with Milah so long ago, and the taste of honey on her lips later - and he cannot stomach the taste again now. He returns the cup to the tray with an irritable _smack_.

Well, it's not as if he means to brutalise the girl. He's not some fumbling and ignorant oaf. She can close her eyes and pretend that her husband is... otherwise, can't she? She won't be the first bride to have to imagine a handsome lad in place of her husband, will she?

Rumpelstiltskin does... she is... his wife is... lovely.

He's unprepared for the pang of longing as he turns again to look at her. The poor creature is half asleep, and only fighting it because her husband keeps her waiting. Perhaps she'll hardly notice, if he's careful enough, and hardly remember come morning? Perhaps she'll not hate him too terribly, if he's gentle?

Darkness laughs at him from the hollow pit of his heart. _Coward._ It plies him again with memories of other lives, all the more vivid when he shuts his eyes; the lust for power, not flesh. Flesh is anywhere and everywhere, readily available and even willing, for a man with enough gold in his purse.

Monster he may be, but he remembers being a man. Remembers the flinch of pain, the first time, with his first wife. He's wondered, often, if it was feigned - that flinch. Certainly there was no blood upon the sheets come morning. One of the old women nicked her thumb with a tiny knife and smeared the unsullied sheet as she dragged it to the door to display his conquest to the cheering crowd. They always did. It proved nothing, that proving; neither virginity nor consummation. It was simply what was done, a blood ceremony as old as time.

These days, Rumpelstiltskin knows one sort of blood from another at a glance; each sort has its own magic, ripe for the taking, and it all calls to him with dark possibility. He can spin such base magic into anything he desires, yet there are ways in which such power leaves him none the wiser. No wiser than the man he was in Milah's bed, that first night, but wise enough to know that such things matter.

Such things _matter_.

He crosses the room and sits beside his new wife, stirring her from her daze. It would be nice to caress her hair, he thinks, wistfully. He'd not ask very much of her, for his own pleasure, but he does like her hair so. Rumpelstiltskin tries to recall how it is done - an honest seduction, not a game of deceit and ulterior motives and cruel delight in the winning. What words does a man say to his virgin bride to calm her fears? What should he whisper to stir her desires?

Rumpelstiltskin almost laughs out loud at his own folly. Stir her desires? He'll count himself fortunate if the girl doesn't _retch_ when he presses near, and yet... and yet it need not be so cold. He can feel the certainty of magic at his fingertips, and it steels his nerve.

"I can guarantee your pleasure, my Lady. If you wish." Some part of him goes on laughing at his hushed tone, his careful and slow movements. Rumpelstiltskin stamps it down, back into the mire of memory. Belle has to blink a few times to stir herself, to comprehend.

"With magic?" Her pretty frown returns, along with a wrinkling of her nose. "That's cheating."

Again, the girl is too honest for her own good. It might be no bad thing, he thinks, if she learns when it's prudent to take shelter behind an easy lie.

Her hair tumbles from where she's tucked it behind her shoulder, half covering her face until she pushes it back. Rumpelstiltskin can imagine the softness of it in his hand, and the tickle against his cheek in an embrace. He yearns, though it's not his cock that leads him towards temptation. It's the softness of her, so sweet there among the pillows. It's the faint edge to her words that signal a very genteel _impatience_ at her husband's procrastination. _Come to bed or go away,_ she seems to say, with her steady if sleepy stare. _Get on with it or let me sleep._

He's always enjoyed a woman with ideas of her own.

"Then I will be brief, and see to it that you feel no pain." Rumpelstiltskin clenches his fists and turns his scorn inwards before his expression can alarm her. "A wedding gift," he adds, with a little bow from the hips and barely any sneer at all.

Belle almost smiles, befuddled as she is. "Another one?" She hauls herself half upright when Rumpelstiltskin lifts the covers and joins her beneath, acting before his courage fails him. He'd sooner face a dragon than bed this slip of a girl with her soft innocence and her frank sincerity, but he made a deal. He will hold her to it, and himself also... if she doesn't flinch.

"Am I not known for my generosity?" With barely a thought, he trades his clothing for a nightshirt. He need not subject her to nakedness - not hers and certainly not to his. Even so, his cock stirs with anticipation at the thought of her skin against his. Of late, his self-denial has been so thorough, so absolute, that he's startled by the sensation of arousal. It's many a year since he tried to be a man, but the flesh remembers how sweet it is to be inside a woman, and his prick fills and hardens with an eagerness that eludes the rest of him.

"Not really," his wife frowns, puzzled. "No." Again, Rumpelstiltskin has to stifle laughter, lest he frighten her and lose himself to temptation. She is _lovely_. The longer he watches her, the more certain he is that her innocence is not ignorance. Nor is her willingness merely a sullen surrender to the inevitable, to tradition or to her duty. His little wife made a deal and means to keep it, and Rumpelstiltskin almost cackles with glee when he realises that. So few people think it through, when they deal with him. So very few people are prepared to uphold their side of the bargain, to the letter, exactly as he would insist were this any other deal. Any contract but this.

How, though? How does a man take his wife without... imposing? Belle watches him with steady, wary expectation and Rumpelstiltskin feels absurdly inadequate in the face of it. Too hasty and she'll be harmed, yet to prolong it is to make her endure _him_ all the longer. Any girl with the wisdom to refuse easy magic deserves a better husband than he for her wedding night.

Gently, then. He'll not paw her the way the dukeling would have. He'll not use her for his lust, though it seems he has enough of that at the prospect of warm and willing flesh beneath him. Such lovely flesh it is, too.

They lie down together, Belle making no attempt to keep her distance from him. Rumpelstiltskin hesitates to touch her, and finds that his hand shakes when he tries. Tipsy giggles were far easier than this, but she had mead enough to get proper drunk before he got here if that's what she wanted. She _watches_ him, as he tries a first, tentative touch at her waist, easing himself nearer to her side. The wariness remains, and she is afraid of being hurt, but her eyes hold no accusation. No contempt. And no disgust; it's a man that she fears, here and now - not a beast. She waits, containing her fright with sheer, stubborn pride. Possibly she'd call it courage, but that's a virtue that Rumpelstiltskin regards with a healthy suspicion. Brave enough, though, that she doesn't cringe away when the Spinner touches her through her crisp white nightgown, and brave enough to meet his gaze whenever he dares to meet hers.

A kiss, Rumpelstiltskin thinks, and the thought of it turns his mouth dry again. He'd like a kiss, to give her a kiss, some... _gesture_ beyond what's necessary to make her his. Dare he? It might revolt her more than the thought of letting him claim her. For a woman of high birth, husband chosen for her, that's merely a duty, a chore done on her back, but a kiss... He'd very much like a kiss. Rumpelstiltskin quakes as badly as he did with Milah, touching Belle, with arousal the least part of it. He cares what no man nor woman thinks of him, but his wife - his _wife_...

Holding his breath, he gives her the briefest kiss - absolutely chaste. It expresses his intentions better than words can, or so Rumpelstiltskin hopes. Belle responds with the slightest pressure of her own lips, her breath held also and her blue eyes wide, wide open. It does not seem to horrify her, that kiss, or if it does then the girl has ironclad self-control, and Rumpelstiltskin embraces the tiny moment of relief. He's chosen his bride well, if perhaps not wisely.

Gently, that's the thing. It need take but a moment if she is not afraid, and then he can leave her be. Show her the Dark Castle and all that his magic will grant her in return for being Rumpelstiltskin's bride. She will be recompensed for tonight, and for all the loveless nights to come. That is the bargain that Rumpelstiltskin made with himself before he chose her.

He's all but forgotten timidity, until this night. Quaking hands, this helpless feeling inside... he'd forgotten, and he does not like it. It's not too late; he hasn't spoiled her. Bundle her into her cloak and send her back to her father, to the dukeling. Say that she paid her price, that he only meant to see whether or not she would beg for pity when the moment came. Say that he does not want her, this beautiful girl with her level head and her steady blue stare. But... no. He took her hand from her father's, and he made a deal. Belle can leave, for he will not stop her, but he cannot send her away. Rumpelstiltskin _never_ breaks a deal.

Absurdly, he wants to speak to her while he runs his hand down her left side. What has he to say that the girl could possibly want to hear? He has no words of love for her, and not the courage to offer words of reassurance. Shoulder, arm, waist then hip; he keeps the touch light and denies himself the swell of her breasts. He has not bought himself the right to paw her, and the desire to do so is, in any case, remote. Her scorn would surely follow, no matter how tender his touch. Consummate and be done with it, that's the way. A technicality, a signature on the contract of marriage.

Rumpelstiltskin well knows the taste of his own lies. There's lust enough at the thought of taking her. What man doesn't like to fuck? She's beautiful, besides, and to be the first... he shivers, tightening his hand on her hip, and snuffs out the candles with a thought. At least she need not look at him. If there's another in her heart, some boy or merely a romantic dream, she can imagine that it's him on top of her instead.

Biting his tongue to make certain that he doesn't say a word, Rumpelstiltskin draws up her nightgown about her thighs. It's roomy, it was made for this occasion, and Belle lies still. Still waiting, his odd little wife, although her breathing becomes shallow and he can hear how she fights to control herself.

 _I won't hurt you,_ he almost says, but doesn't. He's promised her that already; she needs no reminder of who it is reaching between her legs. Silence, darkness and no pain; let it be an abstract memory of brief inconvenience. Let it only be that, and perhaps she may look to the future, secure in the promise of never-again. Hesitant, she eases her legs apart when he touches her inner thigh. Tense as she is, he expects that he will find no willing moisture between her legs. Magic would provide, could excite her loins, but the girl is quite right. That's cheating, and if Rumpelstiltskin can give his bride nothing else tonight, he can give her honesty and the respect that she has earned.

Belle holds her breath when he brushes the back of his hand against her outer lips, but releases it again almost at once. She almost seems... relieved? What did she expect, that he would go at her at once with claws and teeth? Rumpelstiltskin considers, considers his legend, and is forced to concede that she might have expected just that. He'll not hurt her, but she can't take him as she is. A practical consideration with a practical solution. Rumpelstiltskin feels a little relief of his own as he considers the problem.

He conjures a familiar lotion into his palm and tests the consistency with his thumb. It will soothe the flesh as well as make her slippery enough that she'll come to no harm; Rumpelstiltskin smiles, pleased, and gently presses his cupped palm over her sex. She yelps and jerks away from him, causing Rumpelstiltskin to leap in the other direction as if he'd found teeth down there and got his hand bitten. He springs to the far end of the bed and catches at the bedpost to keep from landing on his arse on top of the big trunk.

"What is it?" he demands, squatting there at the foot of the bed and staring at her as shock turns to annoyance. He didn't hurt her! He knows that he didn't!

"Cold and wet!" she cries, mortified, trying to gather up the bedclothes to cover herself. Rumpelstiltskin resists the temptation to stare at what little of her lies exposed beneath the nightgown.

"To save you discomfort," he mutters, squaring his shoulders and averting his gaze. Embarrassment is as fresh to him as timidity and desire, and he likes it no better. "Are you so innocent as all that, girl?"

"My name is Belle. _Belle._ And... no." Her indignation spent, her voice drops more than an octave when she speaks again. "No, I'm not. It's just cold, that's all, and you could have warned me."

He could, at that. Rumpelstiltskin stops his teeth grinding together and grabs for the bedclothes, along with whatever shred of dignity remains to him.

"This is proving to be every bit as tiresome as I remember." He manages to keep a civil tone, though barely. "Let's be done, shall we?" She - Belle - makes no protest when he returns to her side, covering them both up to the shoulders with the blankets. His loss of composure has had little effect on his cock, he's glad to note - not that he couldn't see to that with a touch of magic, as well. His bride should count herself fortunate that he doesn't feel a boastful need to prove his virility and stamina upon these sheets, because a man with magic at his beck and call can obtain a great deal of both.

Taking her by the elbows, Rumpelstiltskin has her lie down again, this time stretching himself out above her with his nightshirt gathered up about his hips. Her compliance is without obvious reluctance; she seems no more afraid than she was before, opening her legs obediently when he makes to push his own knee between hers to get things started. Careful not to startle her this time, he slips a hand beneath her knee and guides her to draw it upwards and make more room for him. There's a... a peace about her. Whenever he expects hostility, resentment, this bride of his is quiet and watchful instead. Where he predicts tears, pleas, she is stoic. Now she waits to be shown what is expected of her, but she has shown that she will protest if she finds a thing objectionable. Not that he'll ever admit it to anyone, but Rumpelstiltskin is vastly relieved about that. He is, after all, not to be trusted with anything pure.

When he tries again with fingers between her legs, with more lotion that, this time, he remembers should be blood-warm, her breath catches before she exhales, carefully, relieved herself. Rumpelstiltskin was drawn to her composure, of course; it's the first thing he noticed about her, after the wonderful mass of chestnut hair. He envies that composure now, trying not to shake and stammer foolish words at her.

For all that he wants to hurry and be done, he finds that he wants to enjoy her as well. Even spreading the lotion with his fingertips is pleasant - he'd forgotten how a woman feels, how silky the flesh between her inner lips is, and how warm it is to lie close to another body. Rumpelstiltskin takes longer than the task truly requires, listening all the while for a change in her breathing that might signify distress or... hah! Pleasure? Now she has him thinking with his prick! Get it done, let it be over and let her alone!

Coating his cock with the last of the ointment, giving it a few rough pulls to hasten things, Rumpelstiltskin tries to empty his mind of all but her loveliness. He opts for closing his eyes and trying not to see any other face as he guides he head of his cock into position, gently opening her with his fingertips. At least he's learned a trick or two, since Milah.

Panic takes hold of Belle - it's primal, mindless, the terror of an unknown quantity. Her brief struggles bring the length of his cock hard against her slippery flesh and it's all that Rumpelstiltskin can do to grab for the headboard, to raise himself away from her a little and wait for her to be still rather than grind against her and seek his release. None of that - he can enjoy his hand, later, if he must indulge himself; he can think of her, and try to imagine how it would be to touch her had she any enthusiasm for the proceedings. Yes. Yes. But not _now_.

Breathing hard, he tries again and this time Belle doesn't react to the intrusion of fingertips then cock. Rumpelstiltskin strives to emulate the woman's iron self-mastery as he eases into her, feeling how she tightens at the unfamiliar; hearing how her breathing becomes broken, staccato, never quite changing into a cry. Chills run through him, the forgotten delights of the flesh, but he's barely inside her before mortal lust is subsumed by magic; she is _his_ , has given willingly; the deal is kept and she is no longer a virgin. He's felt no magic like it in all his years - it claims him, a helpless participant in the oldest dance of all, and it feels blissfully good when Belle calms herself, relaxes herself enough to let him take her all the way. Rumpelstiltskin bites his lip, savouring the tingle of pure magic all over his skin and utterly beyond his control. Moved, humbled, he steals another kiss before the magic fades.

"This is enough," he whispers. She has given willingly - that magic cannot lie, not like a bloodied sheet - and he will not take more from her than she chooses to give. "We've done enough, my Lady. Enough to satisfy a contract." But not a man - gods, not enough to satisfy a man. She's so tight, so wonderful, and all he wants to do is move his hips and _enjoy_ her. He can barely keep his voice under control, let alone the rest of himself; he barely manages not to beg. "Shall I stop?"

He's already braced his hand against the mattress to push away from her when she answers: "It seems a waste, after all that." Her voice wobbles and Rumpelstiltskin has to open his eyes and take a proper look at her face to be certain that she isn't crying. She isn't crying. "I think we should finish what we began." Awkward beneath him, the girl spreads her legs much wider and momentarily robs him of all reason. Rumpelstiltskin barely stifles a moan in time. Even that much movement on her part feels extraordinary, she feels so _alive_ to him in the wake of the magic that joined them. Man and wife, he thinks, his whole body shaking now as his hands shook before; she wants to... she wants him to... oh, sweet girl, does she _pity_ him? He isn't too proud for that. Not now, not here.

Gentle as he can be with his body screaming for pleasures too long denied, he takes her. She does not tense against his first deep thrust, though it earns a gasp; instead, as he settles into a rhythm that's less gentle than he means to be, Belle reaches up and touches his cheek. She spreads her fingers out there, pressing gently with her palm when he makes no objection. Rumpelstiltskin closes his eyes against the sudden burn of unshed tears and turns his head, nuzzles her palm and then dares to kiss here there, as he dare not kiss her lips. He tastes her skin and it only encourages her, the extraordinary girl! She pushes her fingers into his hair, the heel of her hand against his jaw, then strokes his shoulders with the other hand before grabbing at his nightshirt as he succumbs to her sweetness and fucks her, selfishly, thinking of kisses.

He keeps silent when he comes, somehow, though he shudders with the effort; he cannot let her know how effortlessly she has undone him. Panting, reason returning quickly now that lust is spent, Rumpelstiltskin rolls away from her and stares up at the ceiling. What should he say to her? What should he do? He has words enough for those who break his deals; he'll heap them high with mockery and make certain of their terror, revelling in the power of words. Has he none for a lovely bride who keeps to the spirit of her bargain when he required only that she stick to the letter of it?

Hellfires, what has he done? What has he _done?_

Beside him, Belle shifts uncomfortably and pushes down her nightdress, then turns her head on the pillow to watch him. Waiting for words? Rumpelstiltskin has none for her.

"And now I am your wife," she says, eventually, joining him in staring up at the ceiling - at nothing. Rumpelstiltskin chances a smile, but it's a wan and watery thing. He finds it easy to leer and grin and grimace, to mock the world, but his face has forgotten how to simply smile at something lovely because it pleases him.

"That you are," he agrees, and hears a drowsy warmth in his voice that he cannot remember hearing before. He was a man once. A husband once. Was it never there before? He clears his throat and sounds much more like himself. "The most... everlasting of contracts." Especially now. Though the magic has faded, the memory of it burns like a living flame; a true marriage, proven. Rumpelstiltskin wonders if she will bleed.

"Thank you," Belle says, meekly. Awkwardly. "For being kind to me." It's very nearly a question.

Rumpelstiltskin cannot muster a reply. Kind? Is she mad? He throws aside the blankets and gets out of bed, cramped between the edge of it and the wall.

He feels much more himself again in leather instead of silk - Rumpelstiltskin again in well heeled boots and a high collar. Enough. Let her be. He will hold her all the more precious for knowing that she is his, but he will not stoop to impose upon her pity again. As she has honoured their deal, so will he. He will make her a queen, if she but wills it, and he will leave her _alone_.

"I need not trouble your bed again," he tells her, on his way to the door, where he fumbles with the key in the lock and bites back a curse. He does not glance back. "Rest well, my Lady."

He's at the bottom of the stairs before he hears his wife begin to cry.

Ignoring the stares and mutterings of the inn's remaining patrons, overturning the table nearest the door with a furious swipe of his hand, Rumpelstiltskin strides out into the night, into the chilling rain, and does not return until morning.

**Author's Note:**

> **None of my fanfiction may be reposted or otherwise shared elsewhere, including translations and audio recordings, unless you have my written consent. Using my occasional original ideas/characters in your own fanfic, to make your _own_ words or art or whatever, is fine with me.**


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